Now Presenting (I'm No Princess Book 1) Read online

  “I’m sure it could, but I can’t imagine many other people would put him in his place?” I joked with a laugh as I picked up my coffee.

  “No, I would think not,” he answered with a growing smile as we left the kitchen.

  He walked me to my door companionably and there was no more hint of whatever might have happened down in the kitchen. He walked slowly, like he was actually almost relaxed. So much so in fact, that I couldn’t help opening my big fat mouth.

  “You been drinking tonight too?”

  “I presume there is a reason you are asking?”

  I nodded as I tried to take a sip of coffee while still walking and managed to dribble it down my chin. “You’re just more chatty and less…catty…”

  He nodded solemnly, like there was no point hiding it. “Father and I seem to find ourselves discussing matters of the state late into the night. We find it goes better when whiskey is involved.”

  “Because you don’t agree or because it’s depressing?”

  He looked down at me with interest. “A bit of both.”

  “Hm… That sucks.” I nodded. “All right. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  He nodded then said, “I have been remiss,” like he’d just realised something.

  “In what way?” I asked, humoured that he’d ever think he owed me anything.

  “In welcoming you home.” His eyes were warm, a small hint that he was in fact his mother’s son and he too was actually happy to have me there. But only for the briefest moment.

  “Oh… Uh, thanks…”

  “Sleep well, Tatiana.” He bowed and left me staring after him, wondering if it was just my drunk imagination or he actually might be a decent guy under all whatever his problem was.

  Chapter Eight

  I’d spent a nice afternoon with Lia, doing the sorts of things we used to do – eat chocolate, guzzle soft drink, listen to music, and talk about everything from boys to homework to how much we missed lamingtons.

  But I could only grasp onto my old life for so long. And I was once again stuffed into another swishy dress. This one was tea-length, made of a dark lavender tulle and chiffon skirt and satin top combination with a sash around the middle. My hair was up-styled into a perfect do with intentional wispy curls escaping here and there. And I had to admit that I didn’t totally hate having Gerta and Shelly around.

  The two young women were still professional and polite with me, as I presumed they were supposed to be. But when I said something stupid, or accidentally or intentionally humorous, they’d smile or laugh with me. I felt like they gave me real answers to my questions, not the fluffy, glossed-over version. Like when I remembered the cranky military guy from the state dinner and the way he kept glaring at me.

  “Oh, that sounds like General Arnell,” Shelly said as she caught Gerta’s eyes, who nodded in agreement.

  “General Arnell?” I asked as Shelly did her thing with my hair.

  “Yep. He’s the unofficial head of the Gallyrian army. All the decisions for the army’s placement, battles, training exercises? They all come through him.”

  I frowned, realising I really needed to catch up on the workings of my country. “But Rex is the… Commander in Chief?”

  Gerta smiled. “That’s the Americans, my lady. King Reginald is the Chief of Defence Staff, like the British.”

  “Okay. But this Arnell makes the decisions.”

  “Mostly.” I watched them look at each other in the mirror.

  “But what?”

  Shelly went back to my hair. “With the south in unrest, King Reginald has been more involved in the day-to-day than he usually has to be.”

  I blinked. “Unrest? Damn.”

  “What is it, my lady?” Gerta asked.

  I thought I’d just discovered what Rex and Dmitri were up late talking about. I also wondered whether this unrest had anything to do with why Dmitri wanted back on active duty so badly. And thirdly, I’d just realised I didn’t know nearly enough about Gallyr.

  “I’ve just added a new subject to my litany of lessons,” I grumbled.

  “Oh?” Shelly grinned. “What’s that, my lady?”

  “Current affairs…”

  We all laughed when we caught each other’s eyes and my inherent laziness kicked into overdrive as I decided that having someone to do my hair and makeup for me was actually brilliant. I’d never been great at either anyway, so that was just an added bonus.

  They finished getting me ready, then helped me into my dress. And I wasn’t sure if I liked how comfortable I was becoming around other people in my underwear. But then, how different was it to when Jenn, Bea and I went to the beach and I wandered around quite comfortably in a bikini?

  And I was actually ready ahead of schedule for once.

  I stuck my head out my door. “So am I allowed to find my way to dinner alone?” I asked Nikolai, who turned to me so slowly I was sure I’d surprised him and he was hiding it well.

  “No, my lady.”

  “Is that a ‘no’ but you can chaperone me? Or the kind of ‘no’ where I have to stay in my room until someone comes to collect me?”

  Nikolai was trying very hard not to roll his eyes, I was sure of it. “A lady must be escorted to dinner.”

  “But I wasn’t escorted last night.”

  “A…family dinner doesn’t count.”

  “But a fancy dinner does?”

  Nikolai bowed his head. “Yes, my lady.”

  “And how am I supposed to know the difference?” I asked, leaning on the wall on the other side of my door to him.

  He shot me a look that told me I was pushing many boundaries and he wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. “That is what I’m here for, my lady.”

  “Anya!” a pleasantly surprised voice called out and I turned to see Nico smiling at me. He was in his dress uniform and I supposed that made sense if it was a military dinner.

  “Are you escorting me to dinner?” I asked him, shooting Nikolai a wry smile. “Or just passing by?”

  Nico grinned. “I was just passing, but I wouldn’t dare leave a lady stranded.”

  “No, you’re far too gentlemanly for that,” I giggled.

  Nico bowed dramatically. “I live to serve, my lady.”

  “Yes,” I said with a nod. “Very charming.”

  “Perhaps I’m your Prince Charming?” he said, leaning towards me and we all heard Nikolai clear his throat and cover it with a cough.

  “Are you all right, Popov?” Nico asked him.

  “Apologies, your highness. Allergies.”

  I snorted, having the feeling he was allergic to Nico’s brand of attempted seduction. I think Nico knew it, too. “I’m sorry to hear that,” I told Nikolai.

  “Right. Shall I walk you down?” Nico asked me, holding out his elbow.

  “Is that allowed?” I asked whoever wanted to answer.

  Nikolai looked at me like he wanted to say no, but couldn’t.

  I stuck my head back into my room. “Prince Dominic is taking me to dinner, girls,” I told them.

  “We’ll just finish up in here then, my lady,” Gerta replied.

  “Will you want us later, my lady?” Shelly asked.

  I shook my head. “No, thanks. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  They both nodded and gave a curtsey, then I took Nico’s arm and he led me to whichever of the million dining rooms dinner was in that night.

  “You look stunning, Anya,” Nico said softly, with almost a hint of sincerity in his voice.

  I spared him a look over as he shifted to holding my hand to help me down the stairs in my heels. “You, too.”

  “Ah. You like a man in uniform, then?” he asked with a wry smirk.

  I bit my lip against a laugh. “Officer Cadet Mikelson has already tried that, Nico. You won’t have any more luck than he did.”

  Nico broke into laughter. “Mikelson? Oh, that’s brilliant. The man will
be fuming.”

  “You know him well?”

  Nico nodded as we got to the bottom of the stairs and I took his elbow again. “We went through basic training together. Of course, he went off into some special ops unit and I went off to do my time.”

  “You’ve got about eighteen months left?” I asked him.

  Nico nodded again. “I do.”

  “So what are you doing here?”

  “I…” He threw me a devilishly charming smirk. “I elected to have some time off. I felt it only right that Uncle Max’s youngest be welcomed home in the manner she deserved.”

  “And what were you expecting to get out of that, then?”

  “What makes you think I wanted to get anything out of it?” he asked.

  “Because I already know you,” I laughed.

  He leant toward my ear and whispered, “A kiss perhaps?”

  I leant closer to him and whispered back, “You already got one.”

  He stopped me and I noticed that Nikolai stopped a decent distance away. “Perhaps one will never be enough?”

  “Perhaps a certain prince is pushing his luck?”

  Nico clicked his tongue and sighed. “Too much again?”

  My arm tightened around his for a moment as we kept walking. “Just a…” I held up my other hand and held my finger and thumb just shy of touching, “teeny little bit.”

  We both laughed and that was of course when we ran into Dmitri, who said something in his cold monotone Gallyrian to his youngest brother. Nico nodded and the frown he wore told me he wasn’t really impressed by his oldest brother’s words.

  But I wasn’t even trying to understand because Dmitri was wearing his dress uniform and it made all the princes in every Netflix Christmas movie look like home-brand knockoffs. His uniform was a dark navy, accentuated with silver, purple and gold. He wore medals on his left breast and, even if I had no idea what they were for, they looked impressive.

  I stood there like a fish out of water for ages while the two of them argued, completely ignoring me. My eyes slid over to Nikolai, but he was either not listening or he was doing an amazing job of not giving away anything that suggested what the brothers were talking about. I tried catching his eye to ask if maybe I should just go somewhere else, but he wouldn’t look at me.

  “Anya, there you are,” I heard Dad say and Dmitri and Nico shut up pretty damned quickly.

  I threw them a quick look and found Dmitri looking at me. Something in his eyes made me pause, then I turned to my dad and sister. “Hey. I was a little early, so I thought I’d catch a ride with Nico, so to speak.”

  Lia smiled and inclined her head to the princes as Dad looked at them.

  “Nico. Mitya.”

  “Uncle Max, Lia,” Nico replied.

  Dmitri was still very formal. “Max. Lady Malmont.”

  I was skipping right over the fact that Dmitri hadn’t said anything to me when he saw me. I was okay with that. I thought that was probably a good idea. We’d barely seen each other all day, but there was certainly no sign of the man who’d left me at my bedroom door the night before. Which was probably good. Whatever had caused the slight thawing of personality had obviously been a fluke and wasn’t something I’d ever see again.

  “Duke Genovich, have you got a moment?” came a voice and we all turned to see an older man I’d seen around but didn’t know.

  Dad nodded. “Nico, take Lia in for me, will you? Mitya, you’ll take Anya?”

  Nico looked at me, then smiled at Dad and Lia and nodded. “My pleasure,” he said as he stepped forward, offering Lia his elbow before they walked away.

  “Mitya?” Dad asked.

  “Ja,” Dmitri said and Dad walked towards the man who’d called him, leaving me once again with Dmitri. “You look…lovely.” I might have believed him had it sounded less of a chore to say.

  But I had a room full of military personnel I was no doubt going to make a fool of myself in front of. The least I could do was not start with the crown prince. “Thank you. You look very…handsome.”

  That muscle in his jaw twitched. “I should apologise for last night,” he said quickly as though he simultaneously hadn’t meant to say it and that he wanted to get it over with.

  I blinked. “Uh, okay… What about last night?”

  He looked at me like he wasn’t sure anymore. “In the kitchen…?” he said like he thought I’d forgotten.”

  I huffed. “Oh, for God’s sake. I wasn’t that drunk. I remember the ice cream and coffee,” I muttered, looking for Nikolai who was still not paying us much attention.

  “My behaviour was…inappropriate.”

  I nodded, pressing my lips together to stop me blurting anything else inappropriate out. “I know you do things differently here…” I said slowly, not sure where I was going with that. “But apology accepted.”

  He frowned as he looked at me. “Would you not apologise for that in Australia?”

  I smiled, thinking how many boys would actually apologise for that back home. “For that? No. I wouldn’t call it standard, but we get to flirt when we want to…” I stopped and looked at him, panicked. But there was nothing on his face to suggest what he thought about that. “Not that you were… Or I was…” I cleared my throat and felt my cheeks heat as I looked hastily away from what could have been described as heat in his eyes or as an incredible lack of anything. “Uh… Look, it’s fine, Dmitri. Okay? No harm, no foul.” I did that awesome thing I’d started doing where I smoothed my skirt nervously.

  “Good,” he said perfunctorily. “May I escort you into dinner?”

  Oh. That was it, was it? I nodded a little too fast. “Sure.”

  I debated not taking the proffered elbow, but knew that was not the done thing, especially after accepting an apology, no matter how unnecessary you’d thought it was.

  We walked to a smaller dining room than I’d been in before and found Nico, Lia and a couple of others were the only ones there. Larry wasn’t even there to freak the crap out of me with his stick.

  As soon as we were inside the door, I dropped Dmitri’s arm pretty quick smart. He bowed to me stiltedly and we went our separate ways; him to the men at the drinks’ cart – not that they served themselves – and me to Nico and Lia.

  “There you are, Anya,” Nico said with a smile. “Can I get you a drink?”

  I nodded. “Please–” Then he was gone before I could tell him what I’d wanted. I looked to Lia, feeling more tired than I had just before and she gave me a warm smile as she touched my arm comfortingly.

  “Nico thinks he’s great at this,” she explained.

  “Great at what?”

  “At guessing what you want to drink.”

  I looked at the glass of bubbles in her hands and raised my eyebrow at her.

  “Well, I said he thinks he’s great at this,” she said and we laughed.

  “Lady Tatiana?” I heard and Lia and I turned to see someone I actually knew.

  “Officer Cadet Mikelson,” I replied with a smile as he bowed. “How are you?”

  “I’m well. And you?” There was a hint of a smirk at his lips, but I felt there was nothing more to it than an in-joke now.

  I nodded. “Also well.”

  “This would be your sister?” he asked me, turning his not insignificant charm on said sister, who giggled and grinned like an idiot.

  “You haven’t met?” I asked Lia.

  “We’ve not been introduced,” she clarified.

  “Officer Cadet Mikelson, meet Lady Malmont,” I said.

  He held his hand out for hers and she placed it daintily for him to kiss. “Pleasure to meet you, Lady Malmont,” he said, staring up at her like the answer to all his dreams. I felt the urge to kick him none too gently, but refrained as Nico came back and seemed perfectly happy to do it for me, albeit figuratively.

  “Mikelson!” he laughed. “Still on with that old trick?”

  “Tric
k, your highness?” Mikelson asked innocently, standing straight and looking at Nico.

  “My apologies, Lia. Mikelson is a terrible flirt who has a hard time keeping it in his pants,” Nico said, passing me a glass of bubbles not unlike the one in Lia’s hands.

  Lia looked down with an embarrassed tint to her cheeks and I snorted.

  “You know, Nico. Women don’t only drink bubbles and chardonnay,” I said, indicating my glass at him.

  Mikelson smiled like this would be good and Nico looked a humorous combination of confused and amused. “Whatever do you mean, Anya?” he asked me.

  “We were born and raised in Australia. I don’t know what the teenagers here are drinking, boys. But at home, we stick to cheap beer, Passion Pop, Cruisers, or good old Chateau du Cardboard.”

  Nico frowned. “I don’t know that region of France.”

  And that was enough to have Lia forget her embarrassment and burst out laughing. Nico looked at her in surprise as she waved her hand at him while she tried to get control of herself. The idea that Chateau du Cardboard was a region of France was more than a crack up.

  “It’s what we call cask wine, Nico,” I explained for her. “You know? Goon bag? Big silver bladder with a tap in a cardboard box?”

  Nico blinked and it was pretty obvious he did not know what I was talking about.

  And Lia was still having trouble controlling herself.

  “Does this mean you don’t like Champagne?” he asked me slowly and I grinned.

  “No. It just means maybe you’re not as good at guessing drink preferences as you’d like,” I told him with a wink and Mikelson covered his laugh with a cough.

  Nico smirked, his pale eyes shining brightly. “Is that so, my lady?”

  “It is, your highness.”

  He nodded. “All right then. I’ll let you choose for me and Mikelson next.”

  I nodded. “All right then.”

  The four of us chatted and laughed while more people wandered in and around the room. I nodded to Dad when he finally joined Rex with a hushed whisper of something in the king’s ear. Whatever Rex thought about it, he just nodded and they went on as though everything was fine, so I had to assume it was. Servers came around and took our empty glasses and then it was my turn to get Mikelson and Nico a drink.